Allyson D. Robinson
Executive Director, OutServe-SLDN
Let's Celebrate... Then Let's Make History Again
Posted: 11/09/2012 12:20 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allyson-d-robinson/outserve-sldn_b_2101469.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voicesThis week our LGBT community helped make history, as voters across the nation rejected homophobia practically en masse to protect our civil rights and affirm our humanity. We've listed our wins so often since Tuesday that they now roll like a litany off our tongues: President Obama, reelected; marriage equality's disheartening record of defeat at the ballot box, reversed; America's first openly gay Senator on her way to Washington and a cadre of lesbian, gay and bisexual representatives stepping up to take her place in the House. (By the way: well done, LGBT community.)
Some commentators declared that I'd made history myself just two weeks ago when I was named the first Executive Director of the new OutServe-SLDN, the nation's advocacy organization for LGBT service members, veterans and their families. When asked how it felt, becoming the first transgender person to lead a national LGBT civil rights organization, all I could say was that it was unbelievably humbling, a little overwhelming, and that I was glad to be joining a team that has become accustomed to making history.
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Now, OutServe and SLDN have become one organization, with more than 6,000 LGBT troops as members. We represent approximately 67,000 who can be "out" in today's armed forces, but who are anything but equal. LGBT service members lack the basic non-discrimination protections the military offers other minority groups -- protections that have been the standard in corporate America for years. The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the Department of Defense from even acknowledging the legal spouses of LGBT military personnel, and forbids those spouses and children from receiving the benefits and services offered to opposite sex families -- things like health insurance and survivor benefits. And qualified transgender patriots who desire to serve are forbidden from doing so by military medical regulations that have become ridiculously obsolete. Despite the historic victory that the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" represents (once again: great job, everyone), we are nowhere close to a military that lives up to America's promise of equality for all.
